DE 198 32 011 A1 describes several variants of clamp connectors in which flexible ribbon cables are stripped at the sites being connected and the stripped conductor tracks of the cables are pressed against one another by spring elements. These clamp connectors are in need of improvement in terms of their handling, because either they do not afford adequate protection against strain applied to the cable or else a strain relief necessitates costly preparations. At the site of assembly—for example, in a motor vehicle—what is of importance is a simple and secure handling during assembly. To this end, it is not expedient for a clamp connector to consist of several separate parts that have to be assembled with the ends of the flexible ribbon cables being connected.
DE 100 06 112 A1 describes a connector for flexible ribbon cables in which one stripped end of each of two flexible ribbon cables is pressed against a free, elastically spring-loaded end of a respective contact spring, so that an electrical connection is produced between the two flexible ribbon cables via the contact spring. This arrangement has the drawback that, in order to produce an electrical connection between the conductor tracks of two flexible ribbon cables, two respective contact sites are required, which, together, pose a higher risk of an increase in contact resistance due to oxidation, contamination, kink formation, or the like than is the case for a direct contacting of the two flexible ribbon cables.